Wandering Dago suit rejected in ruling

Federal judge says state acted reasonably in barring truck from Plaza

A federal judge has dealt a blow to a lawsuit filed by the Schenectady-based food truck called Wandering Dago.

In a decision dated Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Mae D'Agostino turned aside each of the arguments made by the truck's owners, Andrea Loguidice and Brendan Snooks, who filed the lawsuit in 2013 after being denied a permit to sell their wares at Empire State Plaza as part of the state's summer lunch program.

D'Agostino ruled that officials at the state Office of General Services, which shot down the application, had imposed appropriate limits on speech. "Given the nature of the Summer Outdoor Lunch Program and the fact that it is sponsored and promoted by OGS, it is reasonable for the State to want to avoid the perception that it condones the use of racial epithets," she wrote.

While "dago" is generally understood to be a slur on Italians, Loguidice and Snooks insist it is nothing more than a tribute to her ancestors, laborers who were paid "as the day goes."

Though legal precedent holds that government must have good cause to restrict commercial speech, D'Agostino's ruling said the mere name of the truck "had very little value" as opposed to speech meant to convey an opinion. Backing up a previous ruling, she determined that while broad free-speech rights exist within the public forum of Empire State Plaza, the proper "forum" under consideration in the suit was the state-administered lunch program.

The plaintiffs' attorney, George Carpinello of Boies, Schiller & Flexner, said Tuesday evening he would "absolutely" appeal to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals — the same venue where he previously won a suit that blocked the State Liquor Authority from blocking the sale and marketing of Bad Frog Beer because its label depicted an amphibian giving the middle-finger salute.

D'Agostino's 64-page ruling addressed that case, noting that unlike the beer company, the Wandering Dago was not being prevented by OGS from selling its offerings elsewhere across the state.

"We respect Judge D'Agostino, but believe that the legal analysis was fundamentally in error," Carpinello said.

Loguidice and Snooks named New York Racing Association in their initial suit, claiming that Wandering Dago had been banished from Saratoga Race Course in 2013 due to state officials' objections to its name. NYRA settled with the plaintiffs in January 2015 for $68,500.

Loguidice filed a separate lawsuit in late 2014, claiming that she was fired from her job as an attorney for the Department of Environmental Conservation due to her connection to the truck.

DEC officials dismissed her after it came to light that the truck had been hired by a General Electric contractor to cater an event on GE's Niskayuna campus; agency officials said DEC's work on GE's PCB dredging project on the Hudson should have raised a red flag for Loguidice.

The DEC-Loguidice suit is currently bogged down in legal wrangling about the scope of the questions state attorneys are obligated to answer in depositions.